Game Review: Behind Every Great One
2018-Sep-15, Saturday 15:02![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
I guess this is the second art game I've played, beyond Proteus.
When I first heard the description of Behind Every Great One from this Rock Paper Shotgun article, I expected to hate it. The description and some of the information in that article made it sound like, well, rich people problems. Like all those novels of middle-aged men who feel unfulfilled in their extremely lucrative or prestigious careers and need to find new meaning, usually by having an affair. It talks about piling up of housework and how there's never enough time in the day, but how much housework can one childless couple generate? Certainly not enough to take up eight hours every single day, so it seemed like a flawed premise to me. Maybe in the days before dishwashers and running water and so on, sure, and certainly once children enter the picture. I just spent a weekend at a friends' house and they have a 21-month old, so I can easily see how children will consume every available hour in the day. But two people, one of whom is a homemaker? I didn't understand.
After playing the game I understand but think it wasn't executed very well. Spoilers below this point.
I'm sure she hears about it a lot.
The description of the game on its itch.io page is:
The pressure on Victorine is represented by the screen size. As Victorine does daily tasks or suffers criticism from the other people in the household, the camera zooms in slightly and the screen starts tilting. Eventually she shuffles around, holding her stomach, until she can find a room alone to cry and relieve some of the tension. Reading or smoking also reduces some of the tension, but takes up time that could be used on chores. And there's always something that's not done, or something about her that someone doesn't like. Almost no one ever thanks her for her work and there's always more of it to do in an unending cascade, and it seems pretty obvious that Victorine is depressed and doesn't realize it, or thinks that the problem is with her and not her circumstances. Gabriel says he appreciates her but mostly criticizes her and mostly only thinks about himself and his own ennui. Victorine's life barely has room for Victorine in it.
A moment alone.
Unfortunately, I think the game does a lot to undermine its own message.
The biggest problem is with the chores. I wrote about the amount of housework being unbelievable and after playing the game that's still true. Cooking can take a while, especially cooking for six people. But watering the plants? Cleaning the toilet? Why does the toilet even need to be cleaned every day when it's just Gabriel and Victorine in the house? Even if there's no dishwasher, cleaning the dishes isn't going to take hours and hours. Victorine has maybe 3-4 hour of housework to do every day, assuming she cooks every meal from scratch and there are never any leftovers, and she should have the rest of the day to herself. I'm assuming that she doesn't have part of the day eaten up by depression fog, because while that's a very common result of depression, the game provides no evidence of it. If Victorine could easily do all her chores at the beginning but chores started taking more and more time as the game went on, and reading and smoking grew less relaxing, I think that'd provide a better demonstration. As it is, it just seems like she's an extremely inefficient housekeeper who's spending hours cleaning the toilet every day for some reason.
Also, she doesn't tell Gabriel what's wrong! I get it--communication is hard, and the way that Gabriel is characterized there's every indication that he wouldn't actually listen if she told him, or would dismiss her concerns without trying to alleviate them. But since it never actually happens on screen, I'm not sure. If Gabriel is such a successful artist why not hire a cleaning service once a week to take care of the sweeping and the bathroom? How come they never go out to eat or order takeout? The Doylist reason is that it would undermine the entire theme of the game if it were possible to just sidestep chores like that, but there's no Watsonian reason at all. It's not an option and it never even comes up in dialogue.
Ah, the mother-in-law.
Other people having worse problems does not mean that one's own problems are invalid. Not everything has to be compared to the world's tragedies before feeling sad is permitted. But still, it's hard for me to have a lot of sympathy for Victorine because she never tells Gabriel anything about her feelings. She's not the one who says that Gabriel's parents staying over is a problem, he just mentions how he hates them. And that's because he's very self-absorbed, but maybe if she had reinforced that opinion something could have been done. If Gabriel knew that Victorine didn't want to host his parents, maybe they could have been persuaded to get a hotel room or a bed and breakfast. If she mentioned her workload, maybe he could have gotten her the present of a biweekly housekeeping. He does suggest she take up a hobby, and I feel like this is partly a statement on him not recognizing that reading is a hobby because it's not art, but...he's also kind of right? No wonder she's depressed if she has no friends and never tells anyone how she's feeling.
Patriarchal conditioning often makes it hard for women to express their desires or take up space, and it's harder for Victorine because from a lot of perspectives she has a perfect life. She has a husband who loves her, she doesn't have to work outside the home, and she can use time as she sees fit. And sure, her husband's love seems a bit predicated on her fitting his image of her, and she feels empty with a life of housework and the occasional smoke break, but I can just imagine her thinking. Who is she to complain? It's not like she has to work a retail or fast food job, which also take up hours of the day and involve constant criticism with almost no praise. It's not like she's a single parent and has to raise children and work and there's never enough time to do anything well. It's not even like she works a middle-class job she doesn't like. So she probably tells herself that she should be happy, because her life is good, right? She should be happy. Why isn't she happy?
But Gabriel can't read her mind. Maybe he wouldn't listen if she told him, but she doesn't even try, and there's no indication that this is an old problem or something she's given up on either. Just something she sits on while she falls apart, and that's tragic, and that's common, but if you don't tell someone what's wrong, they can't do anything about it.
Tell other people things. That's the message of Behind Every Great One.
At least someone understands.
I don't know why RPS went with a division of household labor angle for this game, because that's completely missing the point. Gabriel and Victorine have divided up the labor--she does all the household chores and he works to earn income for the household. That's a perfectly valid way to divide labor, and the idea that they should both do 50% of household work just because there's two of them is silly. As long as they're both fine with it, one person working outside the home and one person working inside it is fine. That's how my parents have divided up their lives.
No, the problem is acknowledgment. Gabriel gets plenty of fame and praise for his work as an artist, and even though he doesn't feel creatively fulfilled and has impostor syndrome, he still has people telling him that he's a genius and his work is valuable. The only people who see Victorine's work are Gabriel and other members of her family, and most of them only have criticism on the occasion that they even comment at all. Priscille's statement in that screenshot is notable in that it's one of the few conversations that reduces Victorine's stress.
Behind Every Great One is about unnoticed contributions. It's about how hours of typing up manuscripts and working behind the scenes ended up getting lost to history, about how Sofia Tolstoy's diaries show how unappreciated and discontented she felt. But the game isn't actually very good at conveying that. We know about Sofia Tolstoy's sadness because she wrote about it, but we know nothing about Victorine and neither do any of the other characters. Maybe she wants a job. Maybe she wants to be an author, or to join a club, or something. The player is just as ignorant as the other people in her life, and without that insight, all we know is that something is wrong. Something is wrong.
Communication is hard, and so are relationships, and often that falls harder on the woman than the man in a heterosexual relationship. But that doesn't absolve either party of the responsibility. If Victorine had said something and been ignored, or if there had been reference to previous conversations that had gone nowhere, I'd have more sympathy for her. But as it is, Behind Every Great One has a good message but suffers a communication failure when conveying it.
When I first heard the description of Behind Every Great One from this Rock Paper Shotgun article, I expected to hate it. The description and some of the information in that article made it sound like, well, rich people problems. Like all those novels of middle-aged men who feel unfulfilled in their extremely lucrative or prestigious careers and need to find new meaning, usually by having an affair. It talks about piling up of housework and how there's never enough time in the day, but how much housework can one childless couple generate? Certainly not enough to take up eight hours every single day, so it seemed like a flawed premise to me. Maybe in the days before dishwashers and running water and so on, sure, and certainly once children enter the picture. I just spent a weekend at a friends' house and they have a 21-month old, so I can easily see how children will consume every available hour in the day. But two people, one of whom is a homemaker? I didn't understand.
After playing the game I understand but think it wasn't executed very well. Spoilers below this point.
I'm sure she hears about it a lot.
The description of the game on its itch.io page is:
Gabriel is a really driven succesful [sic] artist. Victorine doesn't have any personal passions but supports Gabriel as a housewife.They love each other.And that lack of personal passions is at the core of the game. Victorine enjoys reading, and sometimes having a cigarette out on the balcony, but otherwise her life is cleaning. While Gabriel works on his next great artistic masterpiece and locks himself in his studio for hours at a time, she keeps house. But there's always more to do than there is time in which to do it. There are six available chores every day and time to do four of them. Victorine can water the plants, wash the dishes, cook dinner, dust the main room, clean the toilet, and iron Gabriel's shirts. She can also read or have a cigarette, but those take up one of the available time slots. No matter how much she gets done, someone will comment on what she didn't do. At first it's Gabriel, but later his parents come to visit, and then her sister needs a place to stay for a few days, making the couple's apartment pretty crowded and sometimes blocking off the balcony or the corner with Victorine's book.
The pressure on Victorine is represented by the screen size. As Victorine does daily tasks or suffers criticism from the other people in the household, the camera zooms in slightly and the screen starts tilting. Eventually she shuffles around, holding her stomach, until she can find a room alone to cry and relieve some of the tension. Reading or smoking also reduces some of the tension, but takes up time that could be used on chores. And there's always something that's not done, or something about her that someone doesn't like. Almost no one ever thanks her for her work and there's always more of it to do in an unending cascade, and it seems pretty obvious that Victorine is depressed and doesn't realize it, or thinks that the problem is with her and not her circumstances. Gabriel says he appreciates her but mostly criticizes her and mostly only thinks about himself and his own ennui. Victorine's life barely has room for Victorine in it.
A moment alone.
Unfortunately, I think the game does a lot to undermine its own message.
The biggest problem is with the chores. I wrote about the amount of housework being unbelievable and after playing the game that's still true. Cooking can take a while, especially cooking for six people. But watering the plants? Cleaning the toilet? Why does the toilet even need to be cleaned every day when it's just Gabriel and Victorine in the house? Even if there's no dishwasher, cleaning the dishes isn't going to take hours and hours. Victorine has maybe 3-4 hour of housework to do every day, assuming she cooks every meal from scratch and there are never any leftovers, and she should have the rest of the day to herself. I'm assuming that she doesn't have part of the day eaten up by depression fog, because while that's a very common result of depression, the game provides no evidence of it. If Victorine could easily do all her chores at the beginning but chores started taking more and more time as the game went on, and reading and smoking grew less relaxing, I think that'd provide a better demonstration. As it is, it just seems like she's an extremely inefficient housekeeper who's spending hours cleaning the toilet every day for some reason.
Also, she doesn't tell Gabriel what's wrong! I get it--communication is hard, and the way that Gabriel is characterized there's every indication that he wouldn't actually listen if she told him, or would dismiss her concerns without trying to alleviate them. But since it never actually happens on screen, I'm not sure. If Gabriel is such a successful artist why not hire a cleaning service once a week to take care of the sweeping and the bathroom? How come they never go out to eat or order takeout? The Doylist reason is that it would undermine the entire theme of the game if it were possible to just sidestep chores like that, but there's no Watsonian reason at all. It's not an option and it never even comes up in dialogue.
Ah, the mother-in-law.
Other people having worse problems does not mean that one's own problems are invalid. Not everything has to be compared to the world's tragedies before feeling sad is permitted. But still, it's hard for me to have a lot of sympathy for Victorine because she never tells Gabriel anything about her feelings. She's not the one who says that Gabriel's parents staying over is a problem, he just mentions how he hates them. And that's because he's very self-absorbed, but maybe if she had reinforced that opinion something could have been done. If Gabriel knew that Victorine didn't want to host his parents, maybe they could have been persuaded to get a hotel room or a bed and breakfast. If she mentioned her workload, maybe he could have gotten her the present of a biweekly housekeeping. He does suggest she take up a hobby, and I feel like this is partly a statement on him not recognizing that reading is a hobby because it's not art, but...he's also kind of right? No wonder she's depressed if she has no friends and never tells anyone how she's feeling.
Patriarchal conditioning often makes it hard for women to express their desires or take up space, and it's harder for Victorine because from a lot of perspectives she has a perfect life. She has a husband who loves her, she doesn't have to work outside the home, and she can use time as she sees fit. And sure, her husband's love seems a bit predicated on her fitting his image of her, and she feels empty with a life of housework and the occasional smoke break, but I can just imagine her thinking. Who is she to complain? It's not like she has to work a retail or fast food job, which also take up hours of the day and involve constant criticism with almost no praise. It's not like she's a single parent and has to raise children and work and there's never enough time to do anything well. It's not even like she works a middle-class job she doesn't like. So she probably tells herself that she should be happy, because her life is good, right? She should be happy. Why isn't she happy?
But Gabriel can't read her mind. Maybe he wouldn't listen if she told him, but she doesn't even try, and there's no indication that this is an old problem or something she's given up on either. Just something she sits on while she falls apart, and that's tragic, and that's common, but if you don't tell someone what's wrong, they can't do anything about it.
Tell other people things. That's the message of Behind Every Great One.
At least someone understands.
I don't know why RPS went with a division of household labor angle for this game, because that's completely missing the point. Gabriel and Victorine have divided up the labor--she does all the household chores and he works to earn income for the household. That's a perfectly valid way to divide labor, and the idea that they should both do 50% of household work just because there's two of them is silly. As long as they're both fine with it, one person working outside the home and one person working inside it is fine. That's how my parents have divided up their lives.
No, the problem is acknowledgment. Gabriel gets plenty of fame and praise for his work as an artist, and even though he doesn't feel creatively fulfilled and has impostor syndrome, he still has people telling him that he's a genius and his work is valuable. The only people who see Victorine's work are Gabriel and other members of her family, and most of them only have criticism on the occasion that they even comment at all. Priscille's statement in that screenshot is notable in that it's one of the few conversations that reduces Victorine's stress.
Behind Every Great One is about unnoticed contributions. It's about how hours of typing up manuscripts and working behind the scenes ended up getting lost to history, about how Sofia Tolstoy's diaries show how unappreciated and discontented she felt. But the game isn't actually very good at conveying that. We know about Sofia Tolstoy's sadness because she wrote about it, but we know nothing about Victorine and neither do any of the other characters. Maybe she wants a job. Maybe she wants to be an author, or to join a club, or something. The player is just as ignorant as the other people in her life, and without that insight, all we know is that something is wrong. Something is wrong.
Communication is hard, and so are relationships, and often that falls harder on the woman than the man in a heterosexual relationship. But that doesn't absolve either party of the responsibility. If Victorine had said something and been ignored, or if there had been reference to previous conversations that had gone nowhere, I'd have more sympathy for her. But as it is, Behind Every Great One has a good message but suffers a communication failure when conveying it.
